when stars collide like you and i

Steve doesn’t know, of course. Doesn’t know that he looks outright magical like this, doesn’t know that Eddie‘s watching. Always, always watching. Always wondering, too, and always on the verge of asking. Of touching. Of holding and keeping and—

He swallows heavily as he watches Steve beside him, hands stuffed in his jeans, the cool breeze of the summer air blowing through his hair and leaving goosebumps along his arms that carry constellations of their own. Constellations that Eddie has woven stories around on nights where he couldn’t sleep, nights that Steve spent beside him, covered in the light of street lamps or fairy lights; allowing Eddie to watch. To yearn. To fall.

The night sky above them is clear and the moon is merely a crescent, almost gone completely; and it makes Eddie feel like he’s in some kind of movie. Steve always makes him feel like that, but tonight with the stars above them bringing that look to his face, it’s almost unbearable.

“What is…” he begins, but trails off, not at all planning to speak in the first place, cringing a little at the way he took the tranquility away from Steve, who’s looking over now, blinking his eyes as though he needs a second to come back to reality.

“Hm?”

“Nothing,” Eddie says, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, feeling wrong-footed again. Nervous and frantic when Steve looks so calm. So pretty. So at peace with himself and the world.

“Come on, Ed,” Steve says, lightly bumping his shoulder into Eddie’s without faltering in his steps, and Eddie is sure he stops breathing for a second there with how gentle his voice sounds.

It makes him want to know. Makes him want to find out everything about Steve Harrington and the things that make his mind be what it is.

But how do you ask that? How do you begin to know a person on that level without being painfully obvious about the way you’re absolutely certain that your life wouldn’t be the same without them. That your heart wouldn’t be the same without them. That, in fact, it hasn’t been for a while yet.

“It’s just,” Eddie begins, looking back at Steve before feeling all too caught, because Steve is looking back. Not up. Not away. “You… You always look like that when— Never mind.”

“When what?”

A sigh. It’s Eddie now who looks up, finding familiar constellations that have always remained the same, no matter the shit that happened to him. And they will remain the same even if he fucks this up. If he says the wrong things. They will still be there.

And, strangely, it gives him the perspective and the last little push that he needs.

“When you look up. At the stars, I mean. You always look—“ He gestures wildly at Steve’s face, searching for the words. “Uh. Good.”

A smile breaks over Steve’s face and he bumps his elbow into Eddie’s again — because that’s another thing about Steve under the night sky. He’s always touching Eddie somehow. Always trusting Eddie. With his silence, with the way they’re going, with the things he tells him after a deep, heavy sigh. And he always, always touches Eddie. Only ever briefly, but it’s enough.

It’s everything.

“You think I look good, Munson?”

“Yeah.” And it’s too genuine, too heavy between them, too loaded with truth, with yearning past and present; with everything.

So heavy in fact that it makes Steve slow in his steps until he comes to a stop.

“Tell me?”

Eddie swallows, coming to a stop just a few feet ahead of Steve. “Tell you what?”

“What you— What you wanted to say. About. Uh, about me and the stars.”

Oh, you don’t want that, Eddie almost says.

“It’s stupid,” he whispers instead. “A little. It’s—“

“I wanna hear it, though. Swear I won’t judge.” He smiles at Eddie again, in that simple way he has. That sweet, endlessly endearing smile that has stolen full nights of sleep for months now.

“Stevie,” Eddie rasps, but Steve looks so hopeful now and interrupts him before he can protest.

“I can… Close my eyes? If that’s easier.”

They look at each other for a second, and Eddie is careful not to sound defiant or refusing when he asks, “Why?”

“Because I… I wanna know. I wanna hear it.”

And Eddie can feel the air shift between them with the way Steve us looking at him now. Looking at him in that same way that Eddie has been watching for months now. It’s breathtaking, having that starry eyes gaze resting on him now, boring into him with the fire of a thousand suns, and it only leaves him wanting more.

More, like what’s been happening between them lately. More glances, more touches, more watching.

“Wayne has this thing,” Eddie says before he can think about it, approaching Steve slowly. “He has this— When he needs to talk to me, or thinks there’s something I’m not telling him, we go sit on the couch. Back to back, not looking at each other. And then we talk, and it’s easier.”

He places his hands on Steve’s shoulders and they’re so warm, Eddie never wants to let go. His breath catches when Steve leans into him just a fraction, and his thumb strokes a slow, careful semi-circle along his collar bone. Then, slowly, gently, scared that he might spook or break him, Eddie turns Steve around by his shoulders.

“Okay”

“Okay,” he repeats, and Eddie lets his hands slide away from his shoulders, down to his arms, watching the goosebumps chase his touch, and his heart is racing in his chest.

Then he turns around and leans back against Steve just a little, just enough for their shoulders to touch. It’s Steve who closes the rest of the distance, shuffling closer until their entire backs are pressed to each other.

“Tell me now?” Steve whispers then, and Eddie swallows. He can feel Steve’s heart racing, too, and he wonders if this is happening. If this can mean what it might mean.

He takes a deep breath and accidentally bumps his head into Steve’s. He leaves it there, and Steve doesn’t move away either. It feels so intimate, standing here like this on a side road beside a field that’s moving with the cool summer breeze, with only the stars as their witnesses.

“You, uhm. It’s… It’s a bit like summer nights were made for you. Or, not just summer nights, but those especially. When you look up with your little smile, like everything is right. Like you’re seeing an old friend up there, or a happy memory, and you just… You get, uh, you get this look. Not just in your eyes, but in your whole body. I can’t really— It’s. It’s good. Special. Makes me wanna watch.”

Makes me wanna watch — Jesus, Munson!

He’s looking for the right words, desperately wracking his brain for something to make amends, to make this less awkward, less creepy, less I’m absurdly and entirely in love with you.

“It’s a little bit like you’re in love with the stars,” Eddie says at last, and he closes his eyes, clenching them shut to cast out a world in which Steve would laugh at him and call him stupid, realise he was better off without Eddie’s tendency for dramatic declarations of truth, and abandon him here by the field, all alone with no one to run away with anymore.

But Steve doesn’t push away. Doesn’t laugh, doesn’t taunt him, doesn’t do anything Eddie half expects him to. No. There’s only a little sigh — breathless from the sound of it — and Steve’s warmth leaning into him a little further, seeping even through the heavy leather of his jacket.

“It’s not… It’s not the stars that make me look like that,” he whispers, his head bumping into Eddie’s again, gentler this time.

Eddie frowns. “No?”

Steve shakes his head no, but to Eddie it feels more like a caress, almost intimate in its slow, careful movements.

“No.”

“Oh. Then wh—“

“It’s the person who watches.”

The person who— Oh. Oh.

It makes me wanna watch.

But that means…

“It’s you, Eddie.” It comes out almost as a whisper, a tiny little voice that could be excused as an illusion if Eddie were any less hyper aware of everything about them, of every inch of his body touching Steve’s, sharing his warmth and soaking up his everything.

“You… Do you mean that?” He has to ask. He has to be sure, needs to know that he isn’t dreaming, needs his world to catch up with Steve’s, needs their realities to align so he can reach for Steve’s hand and—

Steve laces their fingers together but still doesn’t move, still leaning into Eddie, still not daring to turn around and face him yet.

“I do.”

And Eddie breathes. He sees. He squeezes and turns and pulls Steve in by his hand to wrap his arms around him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” he whispers into the crook of Steve’s neck, not quite believing yet that he gets to do this. That they’re so close. That Steve is so warm and right there. He swallows, breathing him in. “Me too. Can’t look away.”

“Don’t want you to.” It’s a plea, breathed into his collarbone. It’s a promise, spoken right into his heart.

They hold each other for a while there by the side of the road, the breeze picking up around them, and the treetops whispering their serenity about the two boys they know so well.

Hand in trembling, giddy hand, they walk back to Eddie’s, and Steve doesn’t look up anymore. He looks at Eddie now, with that same expression. With that same smile. And Eddie looks back.

Summer nights are made for Steve Harrington. And Eddie gets to watch now. Gets to hold him, gets to card his hands through his hair and brush the gentlest of kisses to his forehead, his cheek, his lips. Gets to tell him that he loves him under the light of the stars that remain the same.

And Eddie never learns to look away. And Steve never loses his smile.

Eddie shrugs, because yeah, sure. He’s been called worse things. Robin’s called him worse things. This is her being nice. Her complaininig about his incessant smoking is nothing new. What is new is what she does next, placing the cigarette between her own lips and reaching for the light he’s been holding in a loose grip since she arrived. 

She starts coughing immediately, pulling a face at the disgusting feeling of smoke in her lungs and tobacco on her tongue. But she keeps going. Eddie can only watch in surprise and mild horror. 

“These things’ll kill you,” he says then in an echo of her usual sentiment, aware that he sounds as bewildered as he feels. 

“Well,” Robin says, aiming for casual, but quickly interrupted by a wheeze and a cough that’s almost adorable. “Let them try.” 

Eddie huffs, a pale little smile lingering on his lips as he leans back against the stairs behind him, resting his weight on his forearm to watch her. There is something captivating about her. Eddie always wonders what it is, wants to study her forever. 

Maybe it’s only the lingering traces of Everything Steve Harrington that clings to her every breath, her every move, her every fucking cell, with how much he was a part of her and she of him. Maybe it’s their shared grief that has made Eddie fall a bit in love with her and with the way the moonlight catches in her hair and in the smoke wafting from her cigarette. 

But somehow he refuses to believe that all he loves about her is merely the memory of Steve. 

Robin, in turn, is kind enough to let him stare. Kind enough to let him find out what it is between them. If this friendship is more than a misguided projection of grief and mourning and trauma; more than co-dependence and the obsessive will to keep this one person in your life. This one person who understands. 

After a while of Robin just holding the cigarette between her fingers, because no matter how strong her will to self destruct, she never quite got it right with the smoking, Eddie snatches it back before it goes to waste. As if pulled in by a string attached to his hollowed out chest, Robin leans back and into him in one smooth motion. It’s too calculated, though, and Eddie can feel how much she sags once she doesn’t have to hold herself up anymore. 

He’ll hold her. It’s fine. She gets to rest if she wants to. God knows she needs it. 

The night is warm for mid-September, but still Robin shakes against him. Eddie holds her closer. 

Silence settles over them, and it’s not an easy one. Silence is never easy anymore, especially with them. He feels so deeply hollow that even the silence echoes in there, creating an ever-present, uncomfortable thrumming of apprehension and anxiety within him. A certain sense of doom, one that can’t quite decide if it’s only an echo itself. 

“I wanna stop time,” Robin says at last, the cigarette long dead between Eddie’s fingers, but he somehow can’t bring himself to flick it away. “I don’t want tomorrow.” 

I don’t ever want a new day. I don’t ever want another tomorrow. I just want Steve. 

They ring in his head still, another echo that only hollows him out further every time it reaches him — Robin, overcome with hysterical grief, screaming and crying, curled up on that hospital floor, her cries quieting down and making Eddie wish she would be loud again, because the quiet was what killed him. The quiet, the whispered words, the declarations that tomorrow could go fuck itself if it came without Steve made him wish, irrationally, desperately, that their roles were reversed. That he could have died and Steve could have lived, and Robin would never have to wish tomorrow never came. 

He’s not entirely sure if she remembers the words, too. If she even said them in this world. 

So he takes a deep breath, breathes away memories and non-histories, feels the heavy weight of his guitar pick hanging around his neck, resting on the scarred flesh of his chest, and tries not to think of the one string left on his acoustic guitar. Tries not to think of his one last attempt. One last try. 

“I know,” he tells her. “Me neither.” 

He peers over her head, lifting his left hand to check his watch. Ten minutes until midnight. Ten minutes until Steve’s birthday. 

“It’s not tomorrow yet,” he tries lamely, and Robin huffs — the sound wet and bitter and hopeless, making Eddie’s eyes sting. 

“It’s always fucking tomorrow,” she rasps, her voice flat and wavering, and Eddie knows her well enough to know she’s about to cry. And she knows him well enough to do it. 

“I know,” he says again, and reaches for his necklace through his shirt. One more attempt. One more try. One more chance. His eyes burn. 

She turns to him after taking a moment to compose herself, peering up at him through her lashes. 

“Tell me again?” 

His heart falls, the tense apprehension vanishing from the air, bur quickly replaced by something a lot heavier. Something that looks and smells and feels like grief. 

They both know he’ll do anything she asks. He can’t really bear saying not to her. And not about this, anyway — she’s the only one who knows. 

She’s the one who should have had the chance. 

“Which part?” he asks, holding a new cigarette out for her to light it. She does, and the both follow the flame of the lighter Robin always keeps in her pocket these days. 

She leans forward and takes a drag. Eddie lets her. 

“All of them.“

Eddie sighs, pain welling up inside him, and he closes his eyes against the night sky. “Robbie,” he pleads, but he doesn’t finish his plea. He’ll do it. He’ll do anything she asks. 

But before he starts recounting the tales of how he almost saved Steve Harrington, he finds himself saying something he never thought he’d tell her. 

“There’s one more.” The words hang in the air, and Robin doesn’t react. Has no idea what’s coming; what he’s about to tell her. The guitar pick is heavy on the necklace around his throat. “There’s one more try. One more chance. I’m… I have one more—“ 

He can’t even finish the sentence. Can’t bring himself to say it, lest it all be jinxed forever. He doesn’t want to hope. Wants to carry this weight for all eternity and never think about all those times he failed to save someone he was never meant to save at all. People like Eddie, they’re not made to save anyone. Hell, they can’t even save themselves. 

Steve was supposed to be the one doing the saving. 

And he did. God, he fucking did. But he was never supposed to— 

Cold fingers wrap around his own as Robin fits their hands together. 

“I hate you a little bit for telling me.” 

Eddie nods, trying to focus on the cold hand and the nicotine in his lungs, trying not to let panic and grief and guilt and the heavy weight of one more chance win. “I know.” 

“Hey, Eddie?” Robin says after a while, the silence stretching on, and it’s almost midnight now. “Can you— Would you do something for me?” 

He turns his head, flicking the butt of his cigarette out into the darkness beyond them. “What’s that?” 

“Don’t— Don’t try to, to save him. Don’t— Just… Just maybe, could you celebrate his birthday with him? Make sure he knows he’s… God, make sure he knows he’s loved? Last year, no one really made time on his birthday because everything was so fucked up but God, could you— It’s almost midnight, and—“ 

“Robbie,” Eddie interrupts her, his voice hoarse and wavering, his eyes burning with tears as he tugs her close and holds her to his chest. “You should go. Don’t you wanna…” 

But she’s shaking her head against him with a vehemence that can hardly be misunderstood. 

“No,” she cries, and it’s more of a sob than anything. “I think if I ever saw him again, I’d… I don’t know what I’d do. Burn the whole fucking world to the ground for him or some shit, I can’t— I’d probably just cry all the time and that wouldn’t be helpful, really.” There’s a weak, wet laugh that bubbles out of both of them, and Eddie’s wiping at Robin’s face, drying the tears and making way for new ones to fall. 

“I’d light a fire for you,” Eddie says, the same weak smile on his lips that Robin meets him with now. “Nineteen fucking fires, you hear me?” 

She laughs again, then buries her face in his neck in a way that never quite fit. In a way that Eddie always knew was supposed to be someone else’s neck. 

But he’s not here anymore. And Eddie can’t get him back. No matter how much he aches for it, no matter how much he learned over and over and over again how easy it is to love Steve Harrington and how hard, how fucking impossible it is to lose him. Over and over and over again. 

And to live without him. This one fucking life they all get. It’s not fair. 

And now Robin is asking him to go back one more time and make sure that Steve knows— That he knows. 

Somehow the thought of that feels nobler than any attempt to save him, to bring him back; to rewrite history from a lonely boy’s perspective and hope that no one else is reading along. 

It feels right, too. Fundamentally and suddenly, and with such an intensity that Eddie knows the decision has been made the second he started telling her. 

Still he hesitates. Robin’s sobs have calmed down, and Eddie’s hand finds its way into her hair. 

“Do you really mean it?” 

She nods.

He nods, too, but slower. Like he’s trying to sway himself. Which way, he doesn’t know. 

“Make him happy.” 

“Okay,” he decides after a while, feeling hollow and desperate, but feeling purpose burning underneath his skin again. “One last time.” 

He unwinds his arms from around her and heads inside to grab his acoustic guitar. The last remaining string, badly untuned because he never dared to touch it, stares back at him in both mockery and invitation. A dare. A chance. A taunt. 

Outside, Robin is waiting for him, looking anxious. Eddie wants to hug her. He doesn’t, only tightens his grip around the guitar’s neck. 

“Listen, Eddie, if this is goodbye or something—“ 

“It’s a birthday party, Robsie,” he interrupts her, aiming for light, aiming for brave. “I’m coming back right here.” 

“I know,” she rushes to say, taking a step toward him and wringing her hands. It’s endearing. It’s genuine. Eddie really is a little in love with her. “But, y’know, you don’t mess with time, and I don’t know what all you already changed before and I don’t wanna know but… If this is goodbye, if something happens, I just wanna tell you that I’m gonna miss you. And that I think you’re, like, a pretty cool guy. And that Steve’s— he’s really missing out, okay. Okay?” 

Eddie breathes, taking in her words and letting them soak into his body, his every last fibre. 

“Okay,” he smiles. “Thank you. You’re… I’m kind of in love with you, Robin Buckley. So there had better be no change in the universe, ‘cause that would really suck.” 

They smile at each other, Eddie with his guitar and Robin with her lighter, and somehow this feels like a deja-vu. The antithesis to a moment forever burned into his memory.

Make him pay. 

Make him happy. 

Eddie tugs on his necklace and plays the string before he can think about it too hard; before he can decide otherwise. 

"Keep in mind she's the assistant teacher for science classes." Lucas added, like that was some sort of key factor.

"I hate to say it but they have a point." Robin said sourly, arms crossed over her chest. "About the book, not about her."

(Then she turned her head, one hand partially covering her mouth as if pretending to hide a cough as she mouthed to Steve; 'Normal hot.'

Steve subtly nodded his agreement.)

"Okay, creepy factor aside, I get what you're going for, but it's not gonna work. The mindfucker--"

"Flayer!" Multiple children yelled, tone ranging in shades between disgust and horror.

"--would probably pick another person like Billy if it can't get hold of any of you."

"What does that mean?" Ma snapped, back up instantly.

"It means it's smart enough to go after someone whose behavior change you might not notice." Robin translated, stopping things before they turned violent. "Someone who's default personality is naturally aggressive or erratic."

"The hell does erratic mean?" Mike whispered to Will, who quickly whispered back the definition as Dustin begrudgingly thought that over.

"Okay, so we make a list of those people then, right?" Lucas said. "Like a watchlist. People we know to keep an eye on."

"Oh this should be good." Steve snorted, an ugly sound that earned him a look from Robin. "Go on, let's hear who you dorks think is an asshole."

"You for starters." Dustin said as he flipped to the back of his notebook, titling a page as 'WATCH LIST' "But definitely Monsieur Horn."

"The middle school band teacher?" It was Robin's turn to snort, and Steve's turn to give her a retaliatory look. "He's just old. And has standards!"

"Bad standards." Mike muttered, before loudly saying; "Those two weird redneck dudes who are restoring the cabin next to Hopper's."

"Tucker and Dale?" Steve shoved his hands on his hips, stare now very judgmental.

"Dude they're so nice?" Robin shot back. "Like, so nice!"

"The nicest!"

"Okay, fine, who would you pick then?" Dustin demanded, pen tapping angrily on paper.

Steve looked over to Robin.

Robin looked back.

Dustin and Mike both groaned aloud as they did one of their stupid nonverbal conversations, eyebrows going up and down with weird, half aborted hand gestures.

Abruptly they turned back to Dustin, and as one, said; "Eddie Munson."

"I hate when they do that." Lucas complained quietly to Max. "It's freaky."

"Who the hell's Eddie Munson?" Dustin fired back.

"Oh you'll meet him." Robin said. "But trust me he's like, suspect number one."

Steve pointed towards her, head nodding in agreement.

"Jason Carver is probably number two." Robin continued.

"Carver?" Steve said skeptically, "Really?"

"Oh my God yeah--"

They proceeded to have a conversation that they eventually included the Party back into, making a short list of people to watch and arguing why or why not each should be listed.

It would go on long enough that eventually, Nancy and Jonathan both got pulled into the discussion, until it became something of a regular part of their Life After Monsters routine to update each other on random people in the town.

Steve for the most part, thought nothing of it. Was frankly, very hopeful that this third time was a charm, and all Upside Down related activities were done with.

That is until he went running one morning, bright and early at 6:00am, took a short cut across a little park that edged the woods and nearly ran smack into one Edward Munson.

Who--despite it being August and already scorching hot--was swaddled in a fuzzy blanket, eyes glassy as he stared at the little pond like it was about to reveal the secrets of the universe.

Steve slowed to a jog, cautiously calling out Munson's name.

Nothing.

Down to a walk, pulse now thundering and this time Steve bellowed Eddie's name.

No reaction.

"I fucking knew it." He muttered angrily. "Those little shits owe me five bucks."

Spent a minute debating what to do, right as Munson took a step into the water.

Then another, and another, and oh fuck--did the Mindflayer know not to drown people!?

Steve didn't have time to think through anything past that, as Eddie stumbled a little and every piece of lifeguard training he had kicked into gear, demanding he dive in right after Eddie.

Thankfully, he managed to wrap an arm around the older teens middle before the morning attempt to march to his impending doom.

He didn’t resist, thankfully--but sagged against Steve, all dead weight as Steve hauled them to shore, only to topple ass over teakettle the instant they hit land.

"Oh ew, why am I wet!?" He complained near instantly, voice sharp and crystal clear as the two of them lay in the dirt.

"Because you tried to drown yourself." Steve explained darkly, which had the unfortunate side effect of scaring the shit out of Eddie.

"Oh shit." Eddie yelped, voice clear and body doing a little jolt. He looked from Steve to the pond and back, chest rising and falling rapidly. "Shit, not again--"

It was then that he finally registered who Steve was.

(Steve could tell, because the squeak he made was not dignified, and neither was the blush that immediately overtook his face.)

"Are you good, Munson?" Steve asked, eyes raking over him as Eddie clutched the blanket to his chest, trying to figure out what the hell to do next.

Let him go? Call a code red? He didn't take the walkie talkie on his runs dammit...

"Uh--yeah, no I'm good!" Eddie said, words falling out of him in a rush. "It's all good, I was just-- uh, you know, feeding the ducks!"

Like that wouldn't have been suspicious before he tried to drown himself.

"Yeah I don't think so." Steve retorted, before he could stop himself. "Unless drowning in part of your feeding routine."

Impossibly, Eddie's blush deepened.

"Okay, fine. I sleepwalk." He spit, and Steve had spent enough time with Max to know when someone was trying to cover their upset with rage. "Fucking happy, Harrington?"

"Sure." Steve said, edging ever so cautiously closer, trying to get a better look at Eddie's eyes. Had the mindflayer had a tell with the eyes? Or was that some stupid movie monster Dustin was yammering about?

"Did the sleepwalking start recently or...?"

"None of your business." Eddie's face morphed into a scowl, and he began the process of climbing to his (bare) feet. "Now if you're done, I'm going back to bed."

"Done?" Steve asked.

"Yes, Harrington, done. You caught me sleepwalking, how hilarious. Go mock me elsewhere."

"Okay first of all I'm concerned, not mocking you, given I just pulled you out of the pond, man." Steve snapped right back, tit for tat. "Secondly do you even know where you are right now?"

Eddie angrily waived a hand in the air.

"I'll figure it out!" He yelled back.

And the thing was, Steve knew he could. Hawkins was a small fucking town, all Eddie needed to do was hit the street and he'd realize exactly where he was.

Or rather where he wasn't, which was anywhere near the trailer park.

In fact they were far closer to Steve's house than anything, and, as Steve's brain happily pointed out as Munson began the march out of the park, the idiot was both very wet and not wearing any shoes.

'If you drive him home, you get another chance to see if he's possessed.' The voice in his head that sounded disturbingly like Nancy informed him.

'If you drive him home he gets another chance to kill you.' the paranoid Robin voice chimed in.

'He's more likely to kill himself than anyone else. He looks like a drowned poodle.'

Steve pinched his nose for a moment, before hauling himself to his feet and jogging after Munson.

“I’m not,” Robin says automatically, because she can’t say don’t run away from me without making it happen.

“It’s just—” Another laugh that barely counts as one. “It’s my parents, they’re—they’re coming back for—they have to… and it’ll just be—” He shakes his head. A smile that twists into something else at the corners. “It’s just—bullshit, it’s all just…”

The silence stretches, taught. It’s the most Steve has ever said about his parents; Robin feels like she’s trying to fill in a crossword with half the clues missing.

She goes through opening and closing her mouth—opens it again, commits to words. “How long are they…?”

“Just the weekend,” Steve says quietly. He still won’t look at her. “Just the weekend,” he repeats, like he’s reminding himself.

The computer at Family Video stopped working tonight, just as they started to close up. Someone from maintenance can’t come in to fix it until Monday, and Robin had spent the whole ride home talking about the magic of a free weekend, and Steve had never once—

“So stay here,” she says. She feels Steve drifting away even though he’s right beside her. Tries again: “Steve. Stay here?”

“I—I can’t,” Steve says which is not, Robin thinks, a no. “Your parents won’t—won’t they…?”

“They won’t,” Robin says firmly, though she doesn’t know, exactly, what question she’s answering.

Steve glances at her. Glances away. “You sure it’s, um.” A pause, something that’s not quite a cough. “You sure it’s okay?”

“I’m sure,” Robin says, and Steve nods once, twice, eyes fixed just above the steering wheel. His discomfort is obvious. And she knows, suddenly, even though part of her rebels at the thought, that she has to let him go. She has to let him go, and trust that he’ll come back.

“You wanna go home and get, like, clothes and stuff?”

Steve’s shoulders lose some tension—relief at being given something practical to do. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll—they’re not back yet, so.” He turns, looks her in the eye. “I won’t be long.”

She believes him, but it’s still hard to get out of the car again, to watch him drive away. She finds her mom on the way to bed, already in her dressing gown.

“Can Steve stay over?” she gets out in one breath, even though it’s not a question, not really.

Her mom’s smile at seeing her come through the door wavers in thought. Maybe she can hear what Robin actually means. He needs to stay.

“Sure, honey,” she says like it’s normal, like Robin has ever had a friend stay over before, let alone a friend who’s a boy—and sometimes when Robin’s parents look at her, she feels like she’s on the edge of a cliff, that they know somehow, but that’s not the point tonight, the point is—

Mom, I need you, Robin prays, to not make this a thing.

The soft click of the light being turned on in the living room—so Steve can see it when he comes back, Robin thinks.

By the light switch, her mom smiles. “Did you eat already?”

Robin nods.

They’d eaten at work, Steve using his break to fetch leftovers from home; he’d made too much pasta, he claimed, though Robin suspected he’d always been planning to share. He’d joked about the microwave in the back being lethal, laughing—no sign at all that in just a few hours, he’d be…

Robin wheels the trundle bed out from underneath her own bed. Vacuums the dust off the mattress. The only spare set of bedding is an old one decorated with a teddy bear pattern, but everything’s clean and soft. 

She’s just finished making the bed when she hears the front door being opened quietly. Then Steve comes into the room. He has to kind of edge in sideways because there’s hardly any space for the two beds; Robin had wedged them together, half despairing at how she’d nearly blocked the door in the process.

Steve sets a bag down very carefully. He smiles a little at the pattern of teddy bears on the bedspread.

Robin rambles about the shower, about how to get the ideal temperature, and Steve sits down on his bed, he nods and nods, and she’s mid-sentence when she realises there are tears in his eyes.

She falters, but he doesn’t say anything. Just quickly swipes the back of his hand across his eyes, as if he’s silently pleading with her not to mention it.

He lets her shower first, and she’s in bed, reading by the light of the lamp when he comes back. She reaches over to turn the lamp off, but he shakes his head.

“You can keep reading if you want. S’not gonna bother me.”

So she does, or she turns a couple pages, at least. Listens to him shift and settle. Hears him sigh—gentle, a letting go.

“Hey, Robin?”

“Yeah?”

But Steve doesn’t say anything else. After a little while, she hears him yawn. When she next looks over, he’s fast asleep, head turned toward her, like just before drifting off he’d been checking she was still there.

In the morning, she finds Steve awake, sat up in bed. Her dad must’ve come in at some point because she can see a cryptic crossword laid out on Steve’s knees; he looks over, smiles when he sees she’s awake.

“Your dad needed help with this one,” he says. He hands over the paper, and his smile turns wistful. “I like your parents,” he adds like it’s an afterthought—and it occurs to her, in that muzzy, instinctive way on first waking, when all she has to go on is a gut feeling, that maybe Steve talked to her parents while she was sleeping. That maybe it’s easier to say some things at a distance.

She rolls off her bed. Steve must’ve read her mind because he’s already moved to give her space, a mild complaint, “Gonna start calling you All-Elbows-Buckley.”

“Can I say something weird?”

Steve chuckles, nudges her. “Everything you say is weird.”

“This was my first sleepover. Like, officially.”

Because there’s been times after Starcourt, phone calls and long nights on couches, but nothing quite like this: a kind of formality to it. Her parents knowing. It feels… big, in a way. Like confirmation. That what they went through, what they’ve got doesn’t just belong to the summer. That it’s going to last.

Steve holds out his hand. Waits until she puts her hand down on his palm and squeezes gently.

“Then I’m honoured,” he says. It’s said almost like a joke, except Robin knows it’s not, knows what it sounds like when Steve means something with all his heart.

She swings their hands together until he laughs, and then she tiptoes across the tiny strip of carpet she has left to work with, throws open her curtains. The car isn’t outside; her parents must’ve left. Given them space.

A grey sky, but comforting somehow. Nowhere to go, no place to be—except right here.

She looks back at Steve, at how he’s lying in the bed she’s had since middle school, so at ease. I never want you to be sad, she thinks. Not ever.

“So, the world is our oyster, Steve. What d’you want to do?”

Steve grins, a flash of childhood. “I might’ve swiped some tapes,” he says, and he grabs his bag, shakes out a whole stash of them.

“There’s double VHSes,” Robin points out because Steve makes such a big argument against them—hilariously so, stomping over to change the tape, “See that? All the tension just gone, like, what is the—”

Steve’s smile softens. “Yeah, for you,” he says.

He grabs a tape before Robin can say anything, before she can acknowledge the silent thank you he’s just thrown at her feet.

That is until Eddie's walking along the train tracks at night, mumbling angry nonsense about out of town drug deals and how life must hate him specifically to cause his van to break down too and suddenly, there's weird growling in the woods.

Then rustling and growling, then some sort of not-a-dog and growling, then a face that blooms into rows of teeth and Eddie starts running, but he keeps looking back and ends up bowling down a group of terrified children.

Eddie's on his feet in an instant, yelling and screaming, trying to get up and get them up and explain the horror behind him all at the same time while he can hear the not-dog gaining, gaining, gaining.

He spins around right in time to watch Steve fucking Harrington step in front of him and the kids both, swinging a bat against the not-dog's head.

(Somewhere in the part of his brain not liquefied by fear, Eddie registers that the bat has nails in it.)

Steve hits the not-dog's head a few more times before looking up.

They lock eyes, just like they have a hundred times before, only this time, this weird little encounter, he breaks their silence and says;

"Don’t tell me you’re out here trying to catch monsters too."

Which is a wildly hysterical series of words to come out of King Steve's mouth.

Unfortunately Eddie is hyperventilating too hard to make that point, and one of the children seems to clock his weird breathing because they look at him, then look at Steve and loudly go "Uhhh..."

And Steve--rolls his fucking eyes of course he does, the jerk, but he swings the bat effortlessly in one hand and reaches out to grab Eddie’s with the other.

Then they're holding hands and walking (well, more like Eddie's getting towed) out of the woods, Steve casually filling him in as they go, and he doesn't know it yet, but this sets a precedent in his mind.

Steve Harrington is now his designated emotional support jock.

Apparently, somehow, Steve is cool with this, because from here on out, whenever Eddie freaks, flinches, or considers screaming into the void, his immediate response is to death-grip that very same hand, and Steve never once shakes him off.

Doesn't even acknowledge that it keeps happening, but does start just...holding it out, like he's offering a cig, the second shit starts to go sideways.

(Steve, who keeps rolling his eyes about it, but is also never the first to let go.

“Yeah, no shit.” He heads over to Steve’s car and cocks his head at the case. “Are you trying to uh, trade? I’m cash only, Harrington.”

“Ha ha,” Steve says flatly. “No, it’s—you know Robin, right? She’s in your year.” At Eddie’s blank look, he adds, “Robin Buckley,” trying not to sound judgemental. It’s just now that he knows her, he can’t imagine how it’s possible for anyone to not know her. It’s Robin.

Eddie glances at the case again; the penny must drop, because he says, “Oh. Yeah, duh, she’s the one in band? Fluent in, like, everything?”

Steve smiles. “That’s her.” He hands the case over. “Thanks, man, she’s gonna freak when she realises she doesn’t have it. They’re practicing for the game, so—”

“Swiftest of deliveries, got it,” Eddie says, and he actually manages a little salute while holding the trumpet case.

Steve almost laughs.

He doesn’t think any more on the exchange until he’s picking Robin up again. He’s temporarily locked Family Video—what Keith doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Thank God he’s out of town for Spring Break; Steve’s counting down the days. A whole week of just him and Robin, and whatever movies they want to throw on and enthuse about. He’s already picked out his choices, though he still needs to check if the store has them or if he should go through the tapes he’s got at home.

He brings out a notepad from the glovebox and scrawls a reminder to do just that before he sees Robin walking out of school, trumpet case swinging by her side.

She spots his car without him needing to use the horn—claps her free hand to her forehead, and he shakes his head, smiling. It’s a gesture they keep doing at each other, especially when making mistakes at work, getting more and more stupidly exaggerated each time. Then she switches to a thumbs up which Steve returns enthusiastically with both hands, as she opens the door to the backseat and puts the case back inside the car.

“Glad the delivery was successful,” he says, craning his neck to try and meet her eye.

“Yeah, it—” The clunk of the door being shut, soon followed by Robin opening the passenger door and sliding in, still talking, “—was all good, I just, um—ooh, you have gum in here! Great, thanks—what was I—? Oh yeah, I think I confused him?”

“You confused him?” Steve echoes with amusement: an incontrovertible fact of Hawkins High is Eddie Munson’s talent for confusing other people.

“I didn’t mean to! It’s just—okay so, he showed up, like, ten minutes into first period, but you know how Taylor’s stressing about the pronunciation of—basically Rebecca said fam-eel instead of fam-ee—”

“Quelle horreur,” Steve interjects wryly.

Robin snorts, then nods in approval. “Très bien, see, you sound great! But, like, poor Rebecca, she lost her shit—Miss Taylor, I mean, though Rebecca was—anyway, the point is Taylor’s so incredibly strict about talking in French the whole time. I mean, the whole time.”

“The whole time, got it,” Steve says as he reverses out the parking lot. “Wait, the whole time? What if—”

“Whatever you’re about to say, I guarantee you Taylor doesn’t care. Unless someone’s actually dying, and even then—”

“Okay, but what if there’s—like, what if someone’s gotta get pulled out of class—”

“No-one interrupts Miss Taylor,” Robin says gravely. “No-one has dared try.”

Steve starts to grin. “I see where this is—”

“So, Eddie Munson—Taylor always shuts the door but I see him coming, and he’s, like, looking through the window, and I’m trying to wave without being obvious about it so Taylor doesn’t murder me, and I guess I don’t do it great ‘cause he’s looking at me like…”

There’s a pause. Steve huffs a laugh, knowing that Robin’s probably doing a not all that faithful interpretation of what Eddie looked like.

“Rob,” Steve says patiently, managing a brief side glance, “I’m driving.”

“Right, okay, basically he looked like he thought I needed medical attention. And then he’s lifting up my trumpet case, and I’m trying to, like, signal with my eyes like, yay, great! Please just leave it outside the door if you wanna get out alive, but he doesn’t get it, so he knocks and Taylor. Just. Goes. Silent.”

“Ouch,” Steve says. He knows that type of silence well—thinks namely of Mr Mundy’s ire whenever he showed up late to math.

“And Eddie opens the door, and Taylor just speaks the most rapid French at him, and he basically does the world’s most startled mime act, like, pointing at the case then at me, and he’s got these eyes, Steve—”

“Woah, he has eyes? Hadn’t noticed.”

“—that are just begging you for help. And I’m trying to talk for him, in French, obviously, but I’m trying to widen my eyes like, dude, leave, but he just looks even more confused, but then it must click ‘cause he stammers out Bonjour, and Taylor’s staring him down, it’s so—”

“Sounds painful.”

“I mean, it was kinda worth it in the end.”

Steve chuckles. “Really? How?”

“A: I got my trumpet. And B…” There’s a giggle rising in Robin’s voice as she says, “Eddie Munson might not know much French, but he does know how to say Monsieur Harrington.”

“Bullshit, he didn’t say that.”

Silence, quickly broken by Robin’s hiccuping laughter—which, of course, means Steve starts laughing, too. Much later, he’ll recall just how much he smiled; how he told himself he didn’t quite know why.

“Wait, really?”

“Yes!” Robin says. It’s more of a squeak. “He even tried to make your name sound French, oh my God, I can’t breathe—”

“I mean, doesn’t it sound pretty French already?” Steve says, already planning how he can keep this going; maybe he’ll steal Robin’s beret when she isn’t looking. “Don’t I have that je ne sais quoi?”

“Oh, you are so corny, it’s unb—and don’t act like you don’t know it’s all anyone would talk about after, the whispers.” Robin’s voice rises comically. “Did he say Harrington? As in Steve, Steve Harrington?  Oh, my cousin was in his year, he’s so—”

“Shut up,” Steve says fondly. Then, faux smug, “Told you I’m still cool.”

They’re stuck behind a little build up of traffic, just before the turn off to Family Video—and just as Robin starts to reply, she cuts herself off.

Steve gives her another sidelong glance. She’s trying to slide down in her seat.

“… What are you doing?”

“Shh, Steve, he’s right there!”

“Who’s right—oh.”

Eddie Munson must be walking home today, because there he is on the sidewalk. He’s not noticed them, he’s just readjusting the strap of his bag across his shoulder.

Robin keeps wriggling.

Steve snorts. “Jeez, what’re you so scared of? He’s not gonna turn you to stone.” He thinks about it. “Well, actually, there was that one time where—but that’s just ‘cause one of the Murphy twins freaked at—”

“I’m not scared, I’m just mortified, Steve! I’ve basically ruined his life.”

“Uh-huh, totally. Look at him over there, that’s a broken man, all right.”

The traffic starts to move.

“Oh no,” Robin says. “Oh no, no, no.”

Steve grins mischievously. “I’m gonna say hi.”

Robin sounds like he’s just suggested they go rob a bank. “Steve, don’t you dare—”

“What? I like honking the horn, sue me!”

Which is true: whenever he stumbles upon one of the kids—when he’s not actually giving them rides—he loves seeing their reactions when they spot his car. He’s still got a warm glow from passing by Dustin and his mom on his way to work at the weekend, their enthusiastic waves.

They catch up to Eddie, and Steve sounds the horn in a short rhythmic group of three, like a little song.

He glances over in time to see Eddie’s eyes widen in recognition, a red flush creep up his neck. His hand lifts and hovers in the air like he doesn’t know whether to commit to a full wave or not.

Robin, evidently still panicking, winds down the window. She shouts wildly into the wind, “Merci!”

Steve makes it to the parking lot before he loses it.

“Merci?” he wheezes with laughter, as Robin frantically slaps him in the chest. “Merci?”

“I panicked!”

“Oh my God, really? No-one would know.”

“He’s gonna think I’m a total—”

“Freak?” Steve cackles. Robin socks him in the arm. “Ow!”

“That did not hurt. Ugh, maybe—maybe he didn’t know it was me?” A beat. “Steve.”

“Oh, sorry, didn’t realise you wanted me to lie to you.”

This time Steve avoids the punch, gets out the car and retrieves Robin’s work vest from the back. He tosses it to her over the roof of the car, shakes his head with exasperated affection.

“Rob, seriously, relax. Eddie Munson’s probably just praying he never sees us again.”

Robin rolls her eyes. “Oh, well, in that case.”

But she does relax as she puts on her vest; she’s already enthusing about the movies they’ll watch over Spring Break by the time Steve unlocks the front door.

“You need to pick some, too, Steve.”

“Dude, I have a whole list, it’s in the car.”

“Très bien, Monsieur Harrington.”

“Jesus.” Steve scoffs. “Was that supposed to be an impression?”

“No! Eddie was more like…” Robin does an incredibly odd movement with her jaw, as if preparing herself.

Steve flinches back in mock horror. “Oh my God! Never mind.”

“Now, Monsieur Harrington—”

“Uh, no. That is not becoming a nickname.”

“Pass me those tapes, please.”

“No.”

“Whatever you say… Monsieur Harrington.”

The walkie crackles with an update from the Creel House every so often—Lucas, Max, and Erica. They’re all together, all safe—even if Max sounds shaken—and each update is the same, that they’re hiding in the attic, that it’s all quiet. Dustin thinks that’s the only thing stopping everyone here from losing it.

“Let me check,” Nancy says suddenly. She moves away from Steve, where she’d been helping support Eddie’s weight; Robin takes her place.

It’s only when Nancy somehow disappears from view that Dustin’s brain catches up: they’ve arrived, she’s gone through the Gate. She returns barely a second later, catches Steve’s eye and nods.

“It’s—it flips, but it’s not as bad as the one at Eddie’s, we can do it.”

Robin asks a question, and Steve grunts as he readjusts his hold on Eddie, but Dustin has to tune it out; his ankle gives yet another warning throb, the worst yet. He doesn’t think he can stand for much longer, but like hell is he gonna mention it.

“Dustin,” Steve says. His voice is still in that awful sharp tone, but it sounds strained, like he’s been saying Dustin’s name over and over.

And—shit, Dustin’s tuned out for longer than he thought, because Robin and Nancy are nowhere to be seen.

Steve nods at the Gate. “Go already.”

Dustin laughs harshly. “No way.”

“Jesus Christ, Dustin, just—”

“No.”

Steve grits his teeth, but Dustin knows he’s won when he sees his arms finally start to shake. Adrenaline’s carried him all the way here, but it’s running out.

“You’re—” The word cracks in the middle. “You’re coming right behind me or I swear to God I’ll—”

Bullshit, Dustin thinks.

There’s no way he’s going through the Gate first, not after what Eddie—

Voices are coming through in a weird, distorted echo; he hears snatches of conversation, enough to distinguish between Steve, Robin and Nancy, but anything beyond that is muffled.

Satisfied that no-one will notice now, he slowly lowers himself to the ground, bites down hard on his tongue to stop a cry of pain from escaping. Crawls forward until he reaches the edge of the rift, jagged concrete beneath his hand.

Steve’s voice echoes—tight, clipped. “I have to go back through. No, now, I need to get him—”

Dustin doesn’t mean to look. He doesn’t want to, but his eyes are drawn to the Gate anyway, and he looks through it with a sickening twist in his gut because—because—

Eddie is dead. He knows this. Knows it’s the big unspoken thing Steve and Nancy and Robin are trying to keep from him, like he’s suddenly just a little kid, and that fuels the rage inside him, because it’s so much easier to feel that than to feel anything else. I know, he wants to scream. I’m not stupid, I saw it happen. I know, I know!

But.

Eddie’s been pulled through, he’s lying on the road in their Hawkins, and Dustin distantly feels something move underneath his hand, but he ignores it; he can’t look away.

Because Eddie’s chest rises all at once, in an unmistakeable breath; he can’t trust it, he can’t—

A wet, choking gasp—the sound rebounds through the rift, and Eddie spits out something jet black, thick. Another breath—deeper, stronger—and his face is deathly pale, but he’s breathing.

His eyes open. They flash with awareness—and as if in answer to Dustin’s thoughts (it’s not real, he can’t be—), Eddie looks right at him.

It happens so quickly.

Eddie’s eyes widen, and his head turns against the tarmac, searching, searching. A shout that sounds like it’s done with all he has left, “Steve!”

But he’s not begging Steve to help him; he’s looking up, like something is really wrong.

Dustin doesn’t have the energy to understand.

Screams. Someone’s calling his name desperately, they all are. He can’t tell them apart until—

“Dustin!” Steve screams.

He’s trying to get back through the Gate, but for some reason he can’t. He’s cursing, out of breath.

Something is still moving underneath Dustin’s hand. The road.

Oh. It’s closing, he thinks.

“Dustin! Oh my God, oh my God, this isn’t—” It sounds, Dustin thinks with a strange detachment, like Steve’s going to throw up. “Dustin, please! Jump!”

Okay. He’s done it before. What’s one more?

He falls through darkness. Lands—all the weight on his foot. Feels the bone shift. A crack. He screams.

And then—

Nancy’s face above him, upside down. Her lips are moving, he can’t make her out—

Then overwhelming sound: a siren. He jerks his head against wet tarmac. Robin’s voice, wavering, “Woah, woah, woah, don’t look, okay, it’s—”

A flash of something: Steve kneeling on the ground, terrible, heaving breaths. Hands covering his face. “I thought—I thought—”

I’ve never heard you sound like that, Dustin thinks.

And suddenly the cold of the ground beneath him is gone, and he’s rocking side to side. There’s people all around, but he can’t tell—where are they—?

Where’s Steve? he tries to say, but his voice isn’t working. I need to—need to tell him I’m sorry.

And then—just before everything is gone—he feels a hand around his, holding on tightly.